Adrian Covert

Google has one of the best language translation technologies around, which they've continually improve it over the past few years. And now their Android app has the ability to support speech-to-speech translation in 14 languages.

Translate had a rough implementation of this feature earlier in the year, which allowed this functionality between English and Spanish speakers. Now it supports those who ramble on in Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Russian and Turkish. And if you're lugging a tablet around, the App has also been optimized for that form factor.

This is a feature that could benefit travelers in strange lands. If there's a language that someone only knows bits and pieces of, or not a single word, and you have to ask someone for directions or recommendations, you can quickly fire up the app and begin speaking (which is far less clunky than typing and reading).

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Translate also has text translation in 14 languages, and text-to-speech translation in 17 languages. If you're runnng Android 2.2 or later, you can download the latest version of Translate from the Marketplace right now. [Google]